To begin to understand African leaders one must understand the two things that govern their thinking when confronted with a particularly difficult situation or problem:
1) They will search for some good, even if it is minute and insignificant, and use it to justify why they are doing nothing to resolve the problem. They are guided by the eternal optimist’s creed; it does not matter how bad things are, there is always room for them to get worse and therefore one should be grateful that there are only bad. Take this one step further, and African leaders always do, then even the bad would disappear and out of the pitch blackness of despair only they see a whole galaxy of stars and hope!
“The important factor is that there is commitment amongst all parties, which will make the movement forward possible,” said President Zuma.
Commitment, what commitment? It is now seven months after the formation of the GNU and still the parties are yet to agree on minor issues like the appointment of governor of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe. What chance is there that they will agree on the more contentious issues like taking back the idle farms from Mugabe and his cronies – a key plunk in the nation’s economic recovery plan – for example?
When the reality of bad things on the ground is self evident and beyond question; African leaders’ fall back on their plan “B”:
2) They kick the problem into the tall grass or else pass it on to someone if they can. Africa is awash with heroes and heroines all honoured for a multitude of reasons of which sticking one’s head above the pulpit when it matters is certainly not one of the reasons. They all have taken to heart to the Shona sage “Bere zvarakatya, mapakatwa aro mangani!” – The hyena is a coward but then he does not many battle scars either!
After the mess former President Mbeki had made of the Zimbabwe problem and the serious threat to SA’s own stability and prosperity Zimbabwe was already causing; addressing Zimbabwe’s on going problem should have been top on President Zuma’s agent. The fact that the SADC presidency was going to someone else should have made this even more urgent. Surprise, surprise President Zuma seemed to be relieved to pass Zimbabwe to someone else to deal with.
President Zuma and the whole of SA will live to regret they missed the many opportunities to end Zimbabwe’s relentless slid into the abyss – Zimbabwe will pull many other countries including SA down with it.
Leaders like Mugabe, PM Tsvangirai, former President Mbeki, President Zuma, etc.; all clamour – in Mugabe’s case murder – for political power. Once they get it, they do not know what to do with it other than to enrich themselves and their cronies. They have no sense of duty and responsibility to themselves, the nation or all those whose very lives are totally dependent on everything they do.
Zimbabwe is facing serious economic and political problems and they are all man-made problems. Instead of dealing with these problems Zimbabwe’s political leaders have been contend to tinker at the edges and now, sadly SA’s President Zuma has joined them in this futile exercise. Meanwhile the ordinary Zimbabweans continue to suffer!
It was all very well for President Zuma to preach about the need for Africa to unite over important values like democracy and human rights. These are empty words; he should take his duties and responsibilities more seriously instead. President Zuma and is fellow leaders across the Limpopo River should take a page from US President Truman and have the sign “The Buck stops here” on their desks.
And we the ordinary people must also take our duty to hold our leaders to account seriously too. It is true that in Zimbabwe people like Mugabe have usurped the people’s basic and fundamental right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country. We will have to take this right; we should never expect people like Mugabe to simply give this right back. We will have to fight for it or whatever it takes.
2 comments:
This was a comment on a Zimbabwe Times article which is just as relevant here.
This is one of the best articles I have read in the last six months, thank you Mr Editor.
Mr Editor, you are absolutely right to dismiss President Zuma’s call for good governance and commitment to human rights “a rather tire cliché” and “Political Platitude of the year”. You were also right to question MDC’s political competency and maturity in applauding such rubbish.
President Zuma’s visit was a total failure and I was surprised at number of Zimbabweans who tried to see something positive out of the visit. “It is a sign of desperation that Zimbabweans place the utterances of a visiting head of state under the microscope for any signs of hope about their own future,” you said. Well, you summed it all beautifully!
“The primary drivers of change in our nation should be the Zimbabweans themselves,” said DPM Mutambara and you, Mr Editor agreed with him. I think that was rubbish; the usual nonsense we have learnt to expect from Mutambara.
If our political leaders are political incompetent - I am talking of PM Tsvangirai -, prone to talk nonsense - DPM Mutambara, or are ruthless and heartless dictators – you know who. And if us, the people, are too desperate to think straight; then surely we should have the good sense to admit it and accept outside help.
President Zuma was in Zimbabwe to help end the political stalemate. DPM Mutambara is himself complained about the lack of progress in the implementation of the GPA. So for him to then turn round and say Zimbabwe does not need outside help is insulting to President Zuma and stupid.
DPM Mutambara was paraphrasing Mugabe’s “Zimbabwean solution to a Zimbabwean problem” or “African solution to an African problem”. Which is itself nonsense; Zimbabwe’s problem is one of failed political leadership and there is nothing unique about that just as there is nothing special about the solution – failed leaders must go. Even Mugabe’s refusal to accept the expressed democratic will of the people is not unique – there have been many others dictators before him who have too tried to cling on to power and there will be others after him. The response to all Mugabe’s machination is to turn on the pressure, in this case Mugabe’s own economic mismanagement and corrupt ways will prove his own undoing.
As former US President Clinton once said – “It is the economy, stupid” that will finish him off. Zimbabwe’s economic melt down has hit hard the ordinary people, but in the last six months even the ruling elite have began to feel the heat! Mugabe’s ruinous and repressive days in State House are numbered alright.
President Zuma should have realised that SA’s economic prosperity or otherwise, like it or not, is linked to Zimbabwe’s economic and political well being with an embryonic cord neither country can sever. So far SA has benefited from Zimbabwe’s chaos by getting cheap skilled labour. But now with the world wide economic recession the millions of Zimbabweans in SA will only swell SA’s growing army of unemployed! A recovering Zimbabwe would have meant an increase market for SA goods and services. President Zuma and SA at large will live to regret the many wasted chances they had to resolve Zimbabwe’s man-made crisis.
If PM Tsvangirai thought he was going to clarify anything in this interview; then all one can say is everything is as clear as mud!
For three long weeks in June PM Tsvangirai criss-crossed the West, telling everyone Zimbabwe was on an “irreversible” democratic path. None of the Western leaders believed him and told him so to his face. Now he tells us by irreversible he meant something totally different and, one might add, irrelevant.
“We have an option of getting out (of the GNU) if we think that it’s not working. But what we want to emphasize is that when we say its irreversible we are not saying things will not change,” PM Tsvangirai said “we just say this is the only option that gives direction to the people of Zimbabwe and on that we are very committed.”
Here we go again “only option”! MDC went into this inclusive government and had no plan B. Although he talks about “option of getting out”, he has never considered a viable one.
MDC had complained to President Zuma in his capacity as SADC chairman about the lack of commitment on the part of Mugabe to the GPA. Everyone had expected President Zuma to address these issues and not side step them. Instead of Tsvangirai expressing his frustration with President Zuma, MDC first issued a statement “applauding” President Zuma for what Mr Nyarota rightly called “Political Platitudes”. And now PM Tsvangirai tell us the SA President did not visit Zimbabwe to help resolve the impasse but “to familiarize himself with whatever perceived disputes” which he will then report to the SADC meeting next month. Believe that and you will believe anything!
Obviously Tsvangirai believed it, thus allowing President Zuma to get away with a few platitudes when decisive and urgent action was called for.
One thing is clear, Zimbabweans have to look for a way out of this nightmare and not look to Tsvangirai to help in any way. Indeed, one can even say Tsvangirai’s continued blundering will only save to drag the nation deeper and deeper into trouble.
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